Birthday girl held for hours over powder mistaken for drugs

A teenager had wanted to celebrate her birthday at a hotel with friends, but a misunderstanding turned it into a nightmare, and landed the girl and her friends in police custody for about 14 hours.

Taking to Instagram on Sunday to share her ordeal, Ms Sharonia Paruntu said that she had spent 14 hours under arrest after a deodorant powder - known as tawas powder or alum powder - she had taken to W Singapore in Sentosa Cove in a small resealable plastic bag was mistaken for drugs by the hotel's staff.

The police said that they were alerted at 9.29am on Sunday to a packet of white powdery substance, suspected to be drugs, found in a room in W Singapore.

A man and three women aged between 18 and 19, who had occupied the room, were subsequently arrested for suspected possession and consumption of controlled drugs.

The police said: "They were released unconditionally at 1.43am on Nov 11 after preliminary testing on the white powder and their urine samples turned up negative for controlled drugs."

On her Instagram account, Ms Paruntu described the exchange with the police in the hotel room.

She said that after they found the bag of powder, she had said: "Yeah, just put (the powder) on your armpit, then you wouldn't smell for the rest of the day."

The police escorted her and her friends out of the hotel in handcuffs, she added.

Ms Paruntu, an Indonesian living in Singapore, posted: "And the police escorted us out of the hotel with handcuffs, and it was really humiliating because some of the hotel guests saw us and assumed we are (criminals)."

Lawyers and legal experts said that the police had acted well within their powers.

Criminal lawyer Amolat Singh said that under the law, the police can hold a suspect in custody for up to 48 hours to conduct preliminary investigations.

He added that the basis of having reasonable suspicion is enough for an arrest to be made.

According to Ms Paruntu's Instagram Stories, two of her friends were stuck inside the hotel room's bathroom at around 2am because they could not open the bathroom door.

Her other friends attempted to open the door but ended up breaking the clear sliding door.

They decided to call the hotel staff for help.

The staff who arrived then spotted the bag of powder but, according to Ms Paruntu, did not ask her what the powder was.

Mr Singh said that the circumstances surrounding the incident, including the broken bathroom door, coupled with the bag of white powder, could have appeared incriminating, increasing suspicion.

The 14-hour arrest was also not entirely out of the ordinary, lawyers said.

Mr Rajan Supramaniam, a senior criminal lawyer, said that test procedures could take several hours because the specimen has to be sent to the Health Sciences Authority for testing and it can take some time.

He said that the police have to adhere to protocol, and that as long as there is reasonable suspicion, the police have to do their duty and act within their powers.

He added that it is also not out of the ordinary that the police had cuffed the teenagers.

Mr Supramaniam said that there are situations in which the police will cuff suspects, such as if there is a large group, or the suspect is insolent, uncooperative or exhibiting rowdiness or violent behaviour.

Ms Paruntu posted on Instagram saying that the hotel, which is under Marriott International, apologised and refunded the $1,700 it had charged for the broken door after her mother wrote to the Singapore Tourism Board and Marriott's customer service.

Ms Paruntu was contacted for comment on Sunday but did not respond by press time.